NOTE: Part of this piece appears in my 2/11/21 column in the web-paper El Paso Matters. Check out the column published every Thursday @ElPasoMatters
The Georgia runoffs were a must-win for President Biden.
In a speech in Atlanta the day before the January 5th election, the then-president-elect spoke with passion noting that “unlike any time in [his] career one state, one state [could] chart the course not just for the next four years but the next generation.”
Despite appearing to be hyperbole, Mr. Biden was quite correct. The 2020 election was a defeat for the Republican party’s ambitions of retaining the Oval office, but aside from the executive, the 2020 election initially rang as a rather demoralizing defeat for the democratic party.
Three house seats once held by Republicans flipped blue, but fourteen house seats flipped to red. In the senate chamber, before the Georgia races, republicans were bracing for the loss of substantial political power, as democrats already spoke boldly of nearing the needed 60 votes to overturn the filibuster. Despite the loss of Arizona and Colorado, Republicans breathed a sigh of relief having held to victory in close races in Montana, Maine, Iowa, and North and South Carolina. Leaving the senate in the shared power of both parties.
State executives and legislators, who will have the authority to redraw new congressional districts that stem from the 2020 census, remained in the hands of conservatives—with republicans even picking up the state of Montana. In this election, as the English paper the Spectator quite aptly put it, “rarely has a supposedly defeated party been left with so much power”
It was rather clear that Biden was expecting a completely unified government. The evidence for this was his hesitation to answer whether he would ax the filibuster (a risky political move which, to even be considered, would require hefty Senate influence); yet, a thin margin in the house and no margin in the senate meant that after the November election, all eyes were on Georgia.
Back to Atlanta, January 5th, 2021. It’s only hours before the runoffs. Biden continues his speech; the keynote promise: a $2,000 stimulus check. If the people of Georgia elect democrats Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock, “their election will put an end to the block in Washington,” Biden proclaimed. The “$2,000 stimulus check [would] go out the door immediately.” A powerful promise made in hopes of swinging an important election.
It worked. The Democrats won. Incumbent Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler lost what once would have been considered near-guaranteed conservative seats. A lot can change in a matter of months, and no change was more strange than the Republican party’s development of a taste for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
The government was set: a new president, inaugurated, and the nation’s 117th congress, in session. It was time for the Biden administration to make good on its promises of an immediate release of stimulus checks.
The first draft of his administration’s COVID-Stimulus bill was announced. The price tag came in at 1.9 trillion, around 1/10 the size of the economy. Under normal circumstances, this one piece of legislation would be astronomical in cost—over $600 billion more than the government chose to spend in all of 2019. But, in the middle of the pandemic, this cost is around what was reasonably expected.
$160 billion for vaccine rollout, a needed and appropriate increase in unemployment benefits, and a continuation of an eviction moratorium. It would be hard for Republicans to reject this bill so far. But then, the revelation: there have been some edits to the stimulus checks as advertised
In principle, President Biden kept his promise. We are getting a $2,000 check right away. Except instead of $2,000, it will be $1,400, and rather than right away, it will be in March. A promise kept… in principle.
The people have been told that the $600 in December, passed under the Trump Administration, is now part of the Biden COVID relief plan. To put it plainly, this is a nonsense attempt of cutting corners. We were promised $2,000 checks—Immediately— and now that Washington leaders have secured their power, on salaries of over $100k a year, they cannot change the terms of agreement. COVID stimulus checks are part of their mandate.
78% of likely voters supported $2,000 checks as an issue going into the Georgia elections. With the history of the state as a conservative stronghold, Democrats needed to convince on-the-fence conservatives with policies and promises in order to secure their power in the senate. It is no coincidence that $2,000 stimulus checks polled at 74% support among Republicans. It was the defining issue.
With so many Americans struggling to make ends meet as unemployment dwindled out, food pantry lines boomed in growth, and the $600 pittance provided by Washington ran dry, it’s safe to say that people voted for needed aid and stimulus over any particular person or party. Joe Biden promised to deliver, but when it was time to pay the piper, only partial payment was rendered. Rather, promised to be rendered… at some time in the future.
The immediate need for income in the hands of the working people was used as a pawn in a game of political chess—i.e. made only a small part of a much larger debate.
The day before the runoffs, Biden proclaimed: “$2,000 isn't some abstract debate… you need the money, you need the help, and you need it now.” Biden of the past was right, but the rhetoric of the past did not transcribe to action in the future.
As the proposed bill makes its way through the legislative process, Americans cannot help but feel as if they’ve been swindled. A form of gazundering was perpetrated by the president upon the people that had just given him their trust to form a government in their name.
Washington moves on, deaf as an adder to calls from the people to pay the debt that is owed.
In fact, Biden’s proposed bill was guaranteed to cause gridlock. For Republicans, the biggest elephant in the room was a proposed doubling of the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.
On the economic or moral correctness of increasing the minimum wage, it is not my desire to take a position here. Rather, my observation is simple: in a split 50-50 senate, the likelihood that a single republican will vote for an increase to the minimum wage is just about 0%—in fact, if, within the bounds of reasonable mathematics, one could discover the possibility of negative probability, it would first appear to humanity in order to describe the likelihood of senate republicans agreeing to a $15 minimum wage.
Now, President Biden has announced that, after negotiations, he does not believe the minimum wage increase will be included in the final stimulus bill. This was predestined to be true. A minimum wage increase hasn't occurred in over 10 years. In a split senate, with the Democratic Senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, most likely joining Republicans in opposition to such an increase, there was no plausible path to passing a new minimum wage.
This being the case, there was no reason to hold up stimulus for the American people to try and make this hail mary pass. It was, from the beginning, outside the bounds of reasonable strategy.
If there is any hope for Biden to increase the minimum wage, which is not probable, it would come after months of negotiations and many complex concessions to Republicans. With the American people in need of immediate aid, pass stimulus first, and then debate the minimum wage.
The plan of action was simple, within the first week of the Biden administration, pass a clean-cut bill providing stimulus checks to lower and middle-class Americans. Simple. No other stipulations or ties to other bargaining chips. With near 80% support on the issue and a clear and observable need for cash in the hands of Americans, there would have been no debate. With now 50 democrats in the Senate and Vice President Harris to break a possible tie, the bill would have passed under budget reconciliation—where only a simple majority is needed to call a final vote on a bill.
Even so, given that many prominent republicans voiced support for direct payments, such as Sen. Rubio of Florida as well as Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Josh Hawley of Missouri, it is likely that some Republicans would have sided with President Biden on stimulus checks. The president, therefore, could have had a bipartisan win as his first piece of legislation passed in the halls of our Capitol desecrated by division just days before.
It was a guaranteed victory lap, but instead, a political debate was preferred. Contentiousness was now guaranteed instead of much-needed unity.
But of course, because relief is so desperately needed and power so unevenly balanced between the elected and the electors, there will be no major protest. Something is better than nothing, even though we were not given what we were promised.
In Washington, a new administration is in place but, unfortunately, the American people have been delivered more of the same. Politics over promises, strategy over empathy, and division over unity. The Capitol was ransacked, a former president is on trial, and the people are in crisis; President Biden’s first step could have set a tone of strength and greatness. But, at the end of the day, it will go down as Biden's first misstep.